


Of Bones and Memories

by Silverwing26



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, Fluff, M/M, The feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:22:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4680107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverwing26/pseuds/Silverwing26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Phantomhive mansion lies in ruins with rumors of a wraith haunting the grounds. No one has set foot there in years until four brave souls dare visit the bones of a legacy. What has driven them to revisit history, and what will it reveal about their former master, his most loyal servant, and the life he lived?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Bones of a Mansion

It has been many, many years - decades, perhaps - since anyone has heard of the boy called Ciel Phantomhive. The house where he lived is a shell of its former self - a skeleton, if you will. The stone walls still stand mostly intact, but the burnt timbers reach to the sky like black fingers, never finding purchase amongst blue skies and white clouds. The tapestries that did not burn hang in tatters on the walls. The fine furnishings that once adorned the mansion are now merely ashes, or fodder for the birds that have come to roost amongst the fallen rafters. 

This is what is left of the name Phantomhive. Or is it?

It is several years after a fire that claimed the mansion for a second time before anyone dares set foot there. Some people claim the grounds are haunted - cursed - that such tragedy would befall the Phantomhives twice. Some people claim that a black wraith haunts the grounds now, chasing off any who dare set foot amongst the ashes, relics and bones of a life lived among its splendid halls. Eventually, though, someone does come back. Four someones, to be exact. 

One shadowy morning, when the sun was loathe to come out from behind clouds pregnant with rain, a small party bundled against the weather dares revisit history. For them, of course, it is more than history. It is home. Well, it had been. Though not a one of them can bare to remember clearly the time they had spent there amongst it walls of stone and rooms of splendor, and never once does the boy’s name pass their lips. For you see, it had only been a few years, and it is still painful to think about. 

They had hoped, hoped beyond reason that miracles would happen twice. They had prayed to their almighty god to bring them back the boy who defied fate once, to bring them back Ciel Phantomhive. But when he disappeared the first time, he had only been gone a month. The oldest amongst them remembers; remembers what it was like to have the boy come home with a butler clad all in black. He remembers how fate had been denied and a boy lived who should have died and revived a name that perished in ashes. They all remember how the boy pulled them out of hell, and gave them a home and a life and a purpose. It is these memories that force them back to the bones of a house and the ghost of a life to face whatever curse or haunt might befall them on the grounds of the mansion Phantomhive. 

The youngest among them, now a strapping man with kind eyes and hair the color of a new hayfield, holds the eldest man’s arm. The elder man stumbles, in highly polished shoes, with his hair combed back neatly. It is thin and white and as perfectly groomed as when he walked these halls as a steward. “It was in the office,” he says quietly and the young blonde man nods and helps him over some debris. 

“I’ll go first,” says another man with a distinct American accent, dirty blond hair and a fag hanging from his lips. “Who knows if the stairs are still holding together.”

“You be careful now, you will,” says a woman with huge spectacles. The left lense harbours a crack and yet she can’t bear to replace them. She wrings her hands together and then runs her fingers through the dirt and grime that has accumulated on one of the stone mantelpieces. There is a picture frame, the portrait having burnt out years ago, and she sighs longingly as she stares at it, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. 

“Alright, you lot; come up but stick to the right side. The left side is ready to collapse,” the man calls from the second floor. He’s standing looking down at the group with his hands on his hips, the perfect picture of indifference, but these four are not strangers, and the rest of the group can see the pain in his eyes.

“We should be gone before dark,” the youngest says and as carefully as he can, helps the eldest man up the crumbling staircase. 

The eldest man chuckles, and it is barely a whisper. He squeezes the blond man’s arm and shakes his aged head. “Are you to tell me you are still afraid of ghosts?”

“No, Sir. I just thought it would be more respectful.” He is so much stronger emotionally than he was when he walked these halls, so fearful of breaking something. He’s grown, and he has matured, and he is still struggling to hold back tears that want to fall. It’s been several years, but really… What is a few years?

“That was thoughtful, it was,” says the woman and she lifts her skirts to climb the stairs. “Don’t you worry one bit,” she chides at the dirty blond, seeing him moving to help her up the staircase. “I did my share of dirty work here, just like the rest of you. I can handle some stairs.” She smiles, but it is rueful and she thinks she would give anything to have guns strapped to her thighs and be worrying how to get blood out of the parquet, because it would mean there was a reason to protect the mansion - the mansion that lies in ruin on the ghosts of a family who exists only in name.

“It shan’t take long… if it still exists at all.” The oldest man stops to take a deep shuddering breath. This journey has been hard, but he is loyal, has always been loyal and he hasn’t been able to rest thinking about what lies in the mansion. 

They make their way up stairs and stand for a few moments blinking in the light. Dust motes float about them, drifting on the air currents and settling on their clothing. It looks a bit like snow, but of course it is summer just now. Winters have taken their toll on the ruins of the mansion as the roof burned away long ago. Carefully they make their way to the office where the steward spent an inordinate amount of time for a servant. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in there,” says the blonde and pushes aside what is left of the rotting door.

“No one has, save for me, and perhaps the butler, since the previous head of the household died in the first fire,” explained the elder. He makes a show of cleaning the dust from his spectacles, but they know it is so he can wipe his eyes.

They search through the debris looking for the one treasure the Phantomhive mansion may have to give. It takes time, and it is dirty work, but suddenly the woman stands with something clutched in her hands. “This is it, isn’t it?”

She hands the package to the eldest man, who carefully unwraps the tattered and dirty cloth. When the threads fall away, he cries in earnest and clutches a beautiful and miraculously unharmed book to his chest; on the cover is the Phantomhive crest. He opens the cover and hands a slip of parchment to the youngest male as he dries his eyes.

_Tanaka, I entrust this tomb to you as I have entrusted my son to you. Ensure that his life is chronicled the way it should be. If I am not there to see him grow up, make sure there is record of it on my behalf. Tanaka, my butler, my friend, record the things that are important and leave those moments which history feels ‘ought’ to be recorded to the queen's chronicler. This is for his family, for my family, for our family. I trust you. ___

___~Vincent Phantomhive~_ _ _

__The youngest male finishes reading the note penned in exquisite black letters. He has never met Vincent Phantomhive, but he is familiar with his legacy and his heart aches in his chest. He hands the note back to the eldest man and the four of them make their way carefully from the grounds._ _

__Unbeknownst to them all, a dark shadow sits among the boughs of a great tree still growing outside one of the windows on the second floor. It is nearly imperceptible from the shadows of the branches in the dim, sunless morning, but it is there nonetheless. Maybe it is just a trick of the light and the thicket of leaves, but when a sudden wind blows and the boughs shake with the force of it, the shadow never moves. It watches the small group leave and then fades into itself, becoming nothing more than a whisper of a thought and a needle-like memory that simple won’t fade._ _


	2. Among the Pages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The book has been found, and now it has been opened. What will the small group find among its pages? Memories live on as we begin to discover just whom has dared to dig the book from the grave of the Phantomhive estate.

It is a small parlour in which the group gathers. A teapot sits on a silver tray, so reminiscent of the lives they lead once before, that in light of the morning’s affairs merely sipping the tea has a way of bringing about a lump in the throat rather than easing frayed nerves. The tea, though, in it’s beautiful pot and Haviland tea cups - one of the very few things salvaged from the mansion - remains largely forgotten in light of the beautiful book. They gather around the eldest man as he sits in a chair which his frail and withering body is too small to fill these days and watch as he cracks the cover open and flips over a page. 

The woman gasps and puts a hand over her mouth. The man with an unlit fag hanging from his lips drops it into his lap and the blonde man actually smiles softly, almost the way he did years before. They look down at the pages before them and marvel at years of photos. Beside many of them is neat scrawling in black ink, a loyal butler chronicling the life of a boy in much the way his father would have were he there to have done it. 

The woman points to a picture by which the eldest man has written: ‘He returns to us. Oh, thank God, he has returned to us.’ The writings on the page is remarkably well preserved and tidy with the exception of this entry. It seems to have been smudged and scratched through but it is still legible. 

“Look at him. Oh.” She sniffs and the eldest man smiles and shakes his head.

“He has looked worse, dear, you know that. It just looks so tragic here because he was so much smaller then.”

_Ciel sits in a chair in front of a large window. It is a cold crisp morning and the sun is shining brightly behind him. His small feet kick as he sits and over his shoulder is the man who would come to follow him everywhere. People have been coming and going for days to look at him, to poke and prod him and wrap him in loving embraces that no longer bring him comfort. His eyes are tired even though he woke only a short while ago and his small, thin shoulders sag under the weight of his absence, with burdens no one else can see, and scarcely could anyone fathom._

_The man behind him stands tall and straight and if one were to ask the various visitors who have come to dote on the boy, they would say while he is charming and perfectly polite, there is something unsettling about him, something that makes them want to keep the visit short. He leans down over the boy’s shoulder, being careful not to touch him. The boy has been touched far too much and he does not wish to risk unsettling him further._

_“Are you quite alright, Young Master?”_

_Ciel starts ever so slightly, but then looks over his shoulder, the bandages around his head keeping him from seeing the man fully. “I suppose so. I’m hungry, Sebastian.”_

_The boy’s butler bows slightly and excuses himself from the room, and outside the door Ciel can hear him making excuses for his small Lord. “I’m ever so sorry. You see he really has been quite exhausted and has fallen asleep. No, no, I cannot allow you to wake him at this time.”_

_Ciel sighs softly and rubs his thin arms.Thank you, he thinks, though even now he would be loath to say such a thing out loud._

_“Young Master?” the butler says by way of an announcement. When he enters the room, the boy is no longer in his chair and doesn’t answer when called. Sebastian looks about the room and finds him crouched beneath the large wooden desk with his knees to his chest. He arches a brow, finding children to be awfully confusing. “I have brought your lunch.”_

_Ciel looks at him with one blue eye and queries his butler. “You will keep me safe.”_

_The icy tone he uses intrigues the man and he smiles a serpentine grin. “Of course Young Master.”_

_“You will never leave my side.”_

_“No, Young Master.”_

_“You will never lie to me.”_

_“No, Young Master.”_

_The boy sighs and nods, his body finally relaxing. “What did you bring for me?”_

_Sebastian chuckles. “Well, if you come and sit at the desk, you shall see, won’t you?”_

_Ciel smiles and without warning takes Sebastian’s hand and pulls himself into a standing position. “Is there chocolate?”_

_Sebastian’s brow rises and he grips that tiny hand is his own. He can feel every one of the boy’s small, bony fingers, he can feel the mended breaks and newly filed fingernails. He can feel the heat from that small human hand and for a moment is surprised at how much trust the young boy has shown him already. What an interesting child, he thinks and then nods with a polite smile. “Yes, My Lord.”_

“He was always small,” says the American man and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Oh, hush you,” the woman says and places a hand on his arm. “Look, that’s you, it is.” She points to a photo in the book in which he stands, years younger, with a brash grin on his face and one hand behind his head. 

_”Chef? I get to be the chef?” the brash American asks._

_Ciel arches a brow with a small smirk playing about his lips. “That will be your title from now on.”_

_The butler’s face is a mask of polite sincerity, but he is amused in his own way nevertheless._

_“I expect you to uphold certain standards,” the small master says and looks the man up and down. He has furnished him with a uniform and a chef’s jacket. Ciel is somewhat bemused by the goggles the man refuses to give up and shakes his head, deeming it not worth an argument._

_“Yes, Young Master,” the man answers and bows awkwardly. He is American and unused to the etiquette and protocol he is expected to uphold, yet the boy has been kind to him in his own cold way. The butler has been nothing but polite, and yet he unnerves the cook somehow, yet it is he, in his austere unnerving way, who has instructed the new chef on how to address their new master, when to bow and how to be sure to not offend him._

_The last thing the chef wants to do is offend his new, small Lord. The boy has saved him from a life not worth living, from ridicule and from tortured nights filled with nightmares and regrets. He has given the man a life worth living, and there is nothing he can think of on this earth that could make him disloyal to the young Earl of Phantomhive._

_The boy is halfway up the elegant staircase when he stops and turns. “Bard,” he says._

_“Y...Yes, Young Master?” Bard stammers with surprise. His little master has not called him by name before._

_“My expectations are related to the skills for which I hired you,” Ciel says and there is a steely resolve in his voice that commands respect. “Do not disappoint me.”_

_“N...No, Young Master,” Bard stammers and bows as he does so._

_Behind him, a pitch black butler arches a brow and smiles at the boy who has turned his back and continues to climb the plush double staircase._

Bard swallows hard and slips another fag into his mouth. He doesn’t light it, but just holds it between his lips and stares hard at his younger self. He starts as he feels the blonde man’s hand on his shoulder and quickly wipes away the moisture gathering in the corner of his eyes.

“That was a long time ago.” Bard says and clears his throat. “Look. Your glasses weren’t cracked then.”

The woman looks to where Bard is pointing at another photo and she covers her mouth with her work worn hands.

**Author's Note:**

> There is no smut in the first few chapters, but there will be. Please watch the tags as they expand with new chapters for anything you don't want to read or might find triggering. I'm not entirely sure where this piece will end up, but I know it will hit the feels button as my preview audience has told me. There is plot and story buildup before the smut though. Hang in there must fans, it's coming, but in the meantime enjoy the feels, the angst, the fluff and the filled in gaps of Ciel's life.


End file.
